


The Supplication of a Guilty Man

by orphan_account



Category: Naruto
Genre: Drama, General
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-11
Updated: 2009-04-11
Packaged: 2017-10-04 15:48:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To supplicate is to ask humbly, to petition, to entreat, to plea. Is it any surprise when the offer is made? Hyuuga-centric.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Supplication of a Guilty Man

* * *

A moan is what wakes her. It is soft, and breathy and barely enough to stir her. If that was all that had been heard, she would hardly have roused before falling back to sleep. The sound that comes after is what brings her to full awareness in the middle of the night.

"Shhh, Hinata," is all that is whispered, but the tone is at odds with such short words. It is said almost as if at prayer, as if at worship. The blanket falls from her body and in the silent movements to be expected of a ninja, Hanabi sits up, and moves towards the door. Now that she is awake, muffled sounds come whispering up against the hallway walls, shivering the paper as they go. Harsh, shallow breaths beat their way out of nearby lungs. An occasional gasp can be heard, but from where, from who?

She could use the family trump card. It is only a simple hand sign, a whispered word, but something tells her not to. She holds back, knowing intrinsically, that someone would know she was snooping. They would tell by the charka rising. They would sense the changes in air pressure, no matter what was keeping – whoever it was who was out there- pre-occupied. And though young, Hanabi thinks she knows what it is, if not who. If she just slid her door open the smallest crack, she could see, could be sure. No charka levels would change; it was a way to hide in plain sight.

The wood is cool to the touch against her fingers. Short nails struggle to dig in, and push the sliding door back, just a crack. If one were in the hall and looking back, a white eye could be seen pressing itself against dark wood, before closing halfway to limit the light its pupil-less whiteness catches. But, though someone is in the hallway, they are not looking back; they do not seem to see.

Squinting to better make out the figure in the darkened hall, Hanabi gasps. Horrified she's made a sound, it takes a moment to calm herself down. Surely, anyone listening would pay no attention, considering the sounds coming from Hinata-oneesan's room. More gasps are now accompanied by a muted thumping and, waiting for her eyes to adjust, Hanabi just sits there, listening to the sounds as if they were music with no harmony and no beat.

She thought at first glance that maybe she was wrong, that the dark was playing tricks on her Byakugan-less eyes, but no, it is not. Sitting, back against the wall adjacent to her sister's door, is a man. His face it turned towards that door, and though she can see the blurred images of darker smears against lighter smears of shadow, the door is more opaque than transparent. She cannot see what is going on in her sister's room. One would need Byakugan to do that, and when she realizes this, the identity of the man by the wall is nearly settled in her mind.

Theoretically, it could be any Hyuuga staring through her sister's door watching the acts causing the noise. In her heart though, she knows it is not just any. Many Hyuuga are tall and lean, and wear their hair long and straight. But there are not many who would watch her sister's door late at night, who would watch the door of an heir no one believes will live long enough to inherit. Either Hinata's competence will run out and she will die on the field, or the Head's patience will finally give way and he will name his second daughter the more favored one. At least, that is what most Hyuuga think. Most do not know their Clan Head very well. They have never been at dinner to hear him remark how much his oldest takes after her mother, nor have they ever seen his face in the rare event he hugs his children. Because they do not know, they would not sit staring at or through her sister's door. This simple fact narrows down the suspects to two, and she shivers without acknowledging the why. At twelve, only days from being a newly graduated genin, Hanabi understands that fucking is going on behind closed doors. Even her sister's door. Even tonight.

Tonight someone is watching. If she counts herself, which she doesn't, it would make two someones watching and waiting, when her sister's gasping breath is aborted partway through, and Hanabi knows they are done inside. Her nose is squished against the frame and her eye sockets ache from being pressed so hard between the cracks. She waits. And waits. And the figure's eyes to not turn from whatever action is taking place behind the door.

Realizing the man in the hall is making no move to leave, she wonders if the man (or woman, she supposes, though Hanabi is doubtful of this possibility) within Hinata's room will sleep the night with her. It had seemed a remote possibility; surely they would be caught if that happened, and Hinata is officially the heir, even if the majority believes she won't be for long. Still, time is slipping by. She is almost asleep against the doorframe, and the man in hall makes no move.

There is no sound or sudden move that jars Hanabi back into alertness. Glancing down at the two men on the other end of the hall, Hanabi wonders briefly if rising tension alone can wake a person in such a state. But she doesn't wonder long. The man who has just exited the room makes a full stop in front of the one sitting, and neither seems surprised at the other's presence. Either this is a common occurrence, or the man in the room became aware earlier of spying eyes.

A jerk of the standing figure's chin gestures that both should move away from the door. Hinata must be sleeping, because neither man makes a move to indicate the girl should come. Hanabi fears for a moment they are going to move out of her range, but as each moves past the window, their profiles are bathed in light for a moment, and any sort of thought flees. Her guesses about identity were more right than she knew. Not one, but both suspects walk by her.

They look very alike, but then they would, related as they are. Neji-nisan looks like his father, and therefore looks like her father, who was his twin. But time has diminished the overwhelming alikeness. As he's grown, Neji has taken the sharp angles of his mother's face, and is taller and leaner than either her father or uncle. And if Hanabi's heart jumps at realizing it was Neji-nissan who just now left her sister, who not only did what he did with her, but who seemed to have stayed with Hinata till she fell asleep, it comes to a full stop at realizing who the purveyor must be.

Hanabi's father does not look old, as he does in the daytime. He looks serene, as if he's had the coming conversation before. Maybe, Hanabi thinks, he's watched them before. Maybe this is not the first time for the act or the spy. Maybe he's been playing this conversation over and over in his head, waiting to be found.

Neji's knuckles are clenched and white. It is clear he will not last long before exploding into conversation, Hanabi thinks. And sure enough, the pair stops mere feet from her door. She resists the urge to fling her head back, knowing the movement, more than anything else, will alert them to her presence.

Unsurprisingly, it is Neji who starts, spitting out in a low, grinding voice, "What, no seal activation? Or are you waiting till we are further from your daughters' rooms?"

It is as if he is expecting a fight, but then, he has been caught, watched, and studied by the girl's father. Hiashi is more than twice Neji's age, and Neji may be a prodigy, but there is no question who will win this fight. One hand sign is all it will take, but it never comes. After a drawn out pause, Neji continues, more unsure but still angry, "Uncle?"

The first words Hiashi says are about the last either Hanabi or Neji expect, "If you wanted her Neji, all you had to do is ask."

"Wh-what?" It too bad Hinata could not hear their cousin stutter. He always gave her such a difficult time about it. Then she abruptly has an image of what Hinata's stumbling tongue could have been doing not twenty minutes previous, and it is a good thing her father is already answering, so neither man notice Hanabi's disgusted shiver.

"Is that what you want, Neji? Ask me. I'll give you her." As if Hinata were a doll, Hanabi thinks, but she cannot ignore the look on her father's face. In this moment, for the perhaps the first time ever, Hiashi is completely transparent. He bargains, barters, for absolution. He will give anything he can for a release from his guilt.

Neji ignores this, or perhaps he cannot see it. Perhaps only Hanabi, the spare to the heir, can see what walks across her father's naked face. It does not matter either way. A twin is gone, sacrificed. Hinata does not know this, but Hanabi does. Hanabi was there the day Haishi told his nephew this. She too had stood there, forgotten but not deaf. Hizashi exchanged his life for Hiashi's and now Hiashi must learn to live with the guilt. A ghost could walk between them now, if the Hyuugas were ones to believe in ghosts. Nothing can be given to Neji that will repay the debt her father owes.

"Why were you waiting at the door? Were you watching? I can see your veins. You were using your Byakugan just now," Neji inquires in short, terse sentences. She wonders if he is asking for her sister's honor, or for himself.

"She looks like her mother, doesn't she?" This seeming non-sequitor falls through the conversation like a lead ball, though Hiashi says it lightly enough. In fact, this has become a common utterance from her father since Hinata moved back home after her failed Chuunin exam. A moment of normalcy winks through in the face of what, Hanabi can feel, is a conversation that will only happen once. It may seem random, but her father is anything but. For a moment no one speaks as both she and Neji try to figure out what the clan head is saying. Neither is the politician Haishi is. Neither is good at hearing what is not being said.

"Yes," Haishi continues. He turns to look at the moon through the window, and his face is thrown into sharp relief. A memory is written across the muscles of his face. "A beautiful woman. Enough to tempt any man. She is not the most talented, I grant you. Not like her mother. But talented enough, and beautiful. Like her mother was. She will succeed me, and whatever man has her, will have that as well."

Neji makes no comment on Hiashi's continuing seliquoy. His face contorts, finally finding the meaning of his uncle's first answer. "You _watch her_ thinking of _her dead mother_? You watch _us,_ getting off pretending Hinata is _Hitomi_?" Neji spits her mother's name out, disgusted.

Hiashi makes no comment, and thereby confirms Neji's accusations as true. He merely turns from his nephew, and before parting, states one last time, "Do you want her? Ask. I will give her to you."

Two pairs of white eyes watch him leave, but his offer stays with them, as does the revelation of what Hinata means to her father, what he is lusting for each time she steps into the room. She is a ghost, Hanabi thinks, a ghost in a girl's skin, to her father at least. Hardly a person, and more an idea, she is temptation and absolution all in one - if Neji asks.

"Ask him," her voice is hoarse, barely a whisper.

"Do you think I should, Hanabi?" His voice holds no surprise, and Hanabi realizes both parties must have let her listen in. She was no fly on the wall, no hidden listener. Hyuuga see everything after all, Byukugan or no. It is a trick she is still trying to learn.

"Yes." A brother forgiven, a house united, a ghost erased. Is it enough for forgiveness, a release from guilt? Hanabi sucks in her breath, and thinks about what her father thought about on nights Neji did not come to her sister's bed. What did he think of her mother's ghost lying alone on her sister's bed at night? What did he watch then?

No, Neji's request would not be enough, but it would help.

Above her, charka rushes through the prodigy's veins. She did not see him perform any hand signs, but perhaps he does not need them. His vision and thoughts are focused backwards. He is looking through the offers, through the ghosts, and the guilt to the room behind him. Hanabi activates her bloodline too, and watches, as Hinata turns in her sleep and sighs, unknowing of who is thinking about her body, about her heart.

"Tell Hinata nothing of this, understand?" Her cousin walks away, following the path her father took. His Byakugan is still focused behind him, and he does not wait for an answer.

"Do you love her?" Her question trails behind him. His steps slow but never stop.

"Why else would I ask?"

It is only when he reaches the hall's end, and physically turns his head to looks back, that he releases his bloodline. Charka trickles out his flattening veins. He sighs and heads outdoors. Her Hyuuga inheritance still active, Hanabi watches him round the corner to the courtyard.

Her eyes are so busy following his every move, she misses the exact moment another pair of eyes open up. She would, in fact, have missed the fact of them completely, except Hinata's eyes are so large, and white. The reflected light catches her attention. Still, Hinata makes no move at all, and their father and cousin move on, deciding the fate of guilt. Her sister merely lays there, passive, as ever, with eyes open, staring at the sounds of what was never said. Hanabi curls back up in her blankets, and watches her sister for an unknown amount of time.

It is only when she wakes that she realizes she has slept at all.


End file.
